The War in Afghanistan Is Lost

This is the same argument that the war's supporters have used for nearly a decade now to justify more troops and rationalize continued involvement in Afghanistan, but the outlook is worsening. Some believe that given time, the current strategy can change the course of the war and defeat the Taliban. But just because President Barack Obama's administration has "surged" U.S. troop strength to over 100,000 and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is aggressively targeting militant safe havens in Pakistan does not mean that the fundamentals of this war have changed. It's now a nine-year war -- not nine one-year wars. There is no reset button in Afghanistan, and the coalition lost its political capital with the Afghans long ago.